Trust (and Teammates)
by Kalira69
Summary: Zuko's doing his best, but he still doesn't even know why the Avatar and his friends didn't kill him on sight.


One night recently I was discussing Zuko with my friend M (in the wake of writing Tears, actually) and she mentioned how really, once he stops being angry all the time, you get to see that Zuko is just . . . super awkward.

A ball of awkward with occasional fiery shouting, I agreed.

Then the next day I had the image that bloomed into this little story. It slots after Zuko's made some kind of misstep with the others at the Western Air Temple (or thinks he has), not particularly important what it was this time.

* * *

Sokka paused in the doorway, looking at where Zuko had dropped into a slouched heap sitting on a bit of fallen stone. He was muttering to himself and scrubbing one hand roughly through his hair, pulling at it occasionally.

"How were we ever afraid of you?" Sokka asked, continuing into the small room.

Zuko dropped his hand and flung it out a little - not as expansively as Sokka would have, but still a dramatic gesture. "Because I chased you all around the world throwing fire and swearing I would to drag you to my father who would _probably kill you all_?" he suggested.

Sokka hesitated. "Well okay, there's that." he admitted, moving closer and resting a hand on one of Zuko's slumped shoulders.

"There's that." Zuko repeated, not looking up. He hadn't stiffened under Sokka's touch, either, so he squeezed Zuko's shoulder lightly. "I don't know _why_ you decided to trust me. Even to give me a chance."

"Well." Sokka shrugged, because a part of him would have been happier to shove Zuko off the edge of the temple when he'd shown up than let him join them. "You might be a ball of awkward," he said, nudging Zuko over a little and sitting beside him as Zuko tilted his head and stared, "but you're . . . trying to help."

"Well _that_ means a lot." Zuko said darkly. "I've never managed to _not_ fuck something up in my life. You probably should have thrown me off the ledge." He folded down into himself, expression twisting.

Sokka was speechless for a moment. "Zuko. . ."

"Failed my parents and my tutors, because of me my _mother_ -" Zuko's voice cracked but he kept going, "disappointed my father, got my Uncle all but banished along with me - and then I got him thrown into _prison_ back home," Zuko's fingers curled near his brow as he covered his face with his hands, "fuck knows what Mai's thinking now, and then I finally tracked you down again," he dropped his hands into his lap, "and almost couldn't even be any _use_ -"

Sokka turned towards him a little more, the movement awkward with the way they were pressed hip to hip on the broken stone, and threw his arms around Zuko.

". . .ah, Sokka?" Zuko said thinly.

"Shut up." Sokka said, squeezing him a little tighter, suppressing the low hum of fear at coming so close and invading Zuko's space this way, learned instincts telling Sokka he was about to be incinerated. "You joined the Gaang . . . that means you _are_ one of us." He rubbed Zuko's back with one hand.

Zuko shuddered in his arms and then, to Sokka's surprise, almost tentatively returned the embrace. Zuko hugged surprisingly hard for someone who didn't quite seem to understand why it was happening - maybe because most of Zuko's daily activities were based on fighting rather than friendly contact and he was applying the same principles. And amount of muscle.

"Why do you trust me?" Zuko spoke softly into Sokka's neck. Possibly he didn't really mean to be heard, or possibly he didn't know he was speaking.

Sokka bit his lip. He still wasn't entirely sure he _did_ \- that any of them did, except for Aang. Even beyond the now-instinctive fear of Zuko, which left him cringing a little internally when he came around a corner to see Zuko unexpectedly, or when Zuko shouted crossly at Aang in firebending practise, even if it was less abrasive than Toph's yelling half the time.

"Maybe you deserve it." Sokka said rather than any of that, though, and Zuko jerked like Sokka had hit him instead. More than that - Sokka didn't think Zuko would have flinched to be hit. "You're here," he said as Zuko drew back enough to look at him, eyes confused, "you came even knowing we might not trust you - not even enough to- to take you prisoner. And you're training Aang, you're helping us."

"I had to." Zuko said simply, voice half-wrecked with the feeling running through it, and Sokka hugged him tighter again. And thought maybe he trusted Zuko a little more now than he had.

"That's why you're really one of us." Sokka said into his ear, and his ribs creaked a bit under Zuko's grip.


End file.
